T4 Survey

[Avery]

I am undertaking a survey of T4 titles and I invite players and owners to provide their individual ratings for the titles in the series.

I plan to use them in conjunction with ebook and hardcopy reprints. This same type of survey was used with the Twilight: 2000 series, and it helps new players understand the relative strengths of the component titles.

The final results will have a header something like this:

"The ratings for T4 modules are based on a survey of ___ players and owners who were asked to rate each module on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 is best). No specific criteria was specified; the assumed criteria being "general satisfaction." The responses were tabulated to create a set of uniform ratings for the modules."

[Please insert your individual rating for these titles per the example (it makes it easier to process the data if I can cut and paste).]
[Please insert 0 if you do not have an opinion on the module.]


[Please email your response to: T4survey@farfuture.net ]



5 ___ Traveller [4th edition] [example]

Thanks for your help.

Marc Miller


____ Marc Miller's Traveller (Hardcover)
____ Starships
____ Central Supply Catalog
____ Aliens Archive
____ Milieu 0
____ First Survey
____ Emperor's Arsenal
____ Pocket Empires
____ Anomalies
____ Psionic Institutes
____ Fire, Fusion & Steel
____ Emperor's Vehicles
____ Naval Architect's Manual
____ Imperial Squadrons
____ Missions of State
____ Long Way Home
____ Gateway!
____ Annililik Run
____ Game Screen

 

[mike wightman]

Do you want them rated "as is" or "could be if fully errata corrected"?
For example FF&S2 could be an 8 IMHO if it was fixed, as it is it requires a lot of effort to understand and I could only rate it as a 4.

 

[mike wightman]

Do you want them rated "as is" or "could be if fully errata corrected"?
For example FF&S2 could be an 8 IMHO if it was fixed, as it is it requires a lot of effort to understand and I could only rate it as a 4.

 

[Whipsnade]

Mr. Miller,

Holy Guacamole! You do know what sort of ratings you'll be getting for most of the T4 line? Scanning a bunch of zeros, ones, and twos won't make any prosepctive ebook purchaser happy.

Of the ninteen titles listed, perhaps three as currently written are worth owning. The rest range from marginally useful to merely worthless to downright excreble. Errata would help many of the titles. Fire, Fusion, & Steel for example would actually be useful once the formulas are corrected. First Survey is another example, with every UWP in the book wrong it isn't worth bothering with. Apply errata to it, and First Survey would actually be of some use.

Just my 0.02CrImps.

My survey is winging it's way to the address you provided. I voted with the assumption that none of the books would be corrected.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[mike wightman]

I've voted assuming they will be

 

[mike wightman]

I've voted assuming they will be

 

[Whipsnade]

Sigg Oddra wrote:

"I've voted assuming they will be "


Mr. Oddra,

Why? None of the other Reprints incorporated new errata. They did include errata applied during GDW's publishing lifetime, but they didn't include any new errata.

If errata is applied to T4, then my votes would certainly change. Of course, those votes would depend on the quality of the errata!


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[mike wightman]

Mr. Whipsnade,

I live in hope.

Faithfully,

Sigg

 

[mike wightman]

Mr. Whipsnade,

I live in hope.

Faithfully,

Sigg

 

[Morte]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
Why? None of the other Reprints incorporated new errata. They did include errata applied during GDW's publishing lifetime, but they didn't include any new errata.

Judging by the general layout, and the date, of my copy of Pocket Empires it looks like it might have started as an electronic document (DTP). If so, and they still have the files, it could be corrected and reprinted much more easily than the older stuff. That was from the paper paste-up era and would have needed OCR (rather than photography) to correct before reprinting.

You might get lucky. Sounds like an "ask Avery"...

 

[kafka47]

I revised version of Milieu 0 & First Survey with better illustrations and a comprehensive better use of Pocket Empires could make a good CD ROM product.

I also liked Anomiles, except for the last adventure. Long way home was also pretty good but Gateway did not live up to the expectations of the first module...

 

[fredofmars]

5____ Marc Miller's Traveller (Hardcover)
5____ Starships
5____ Central Supply Catalog
6____ Aliens Archive
4____ Milieu 0
3____ First Survey
5____ Emperor's Arsenal
7____ Pocket Empires
5____ Anomalies
7____ Psionic Institutes
6____ Fire, Fusion & Steel
5____ Emperor's Vehicles
4____ Naval Architect's Manual
0____ Imperial Squadrons
5____ Missions of State
5____ Long Way Home
5____ Gateway!
5____ Annililik Run
6____ Game Screen

I don't have Imperial Squadrons, but from a brief glance at it in a store when it first came out I would probably rate it at 5.
- Joseph

(emailed to Marc, copied here)

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

My ratings follow, along with a few comments:

9 ____ Marc Miller's Traveller (Hardcover)
1 ____ Starships
1 ____ Central Supply Catalog
4 ____ Aliens Archive
7 ____ Milieu 0
1 ____ First Survey
1 ____ Emperor's Arsenal
9 ____ Pocket Empires
5 ____ Anomalies
8 ____ Psionic Institutes
1 ____ Fire, Fusion & Steel
1 ____ Emperor's Vehicles
1 ____ Naval Architect's Manual
9 ____ Imperial Squadrons
0 ____ Missions of State
1 ____ Long Way Home
1 ____ Gateway!
1 ____ Annililik Run
0 ____ Game Screen

I only used 0 when I hadn't owned the product in question. As you can see, I wasted quite a bit of disposable income on T4. (sigh)

The story of IG's handling of T4 is rather old by now, suffice it to say that production values were just this side of nil, common business practices flouted(1), and honest playtesting ignored(2). Without a doubt, the T4 materials; not the setting mind you, the materials are the worst, mainstream products ever released for Our Olde Game.

That being said, I liked the return to a simple, MT-ish chargen, thus the core rules got a 9. Most of the rest was pure dreck, one couldn't even salvage ideas from a lot of it. PE and IS rated a 9, although both were 'buggy'. PI rated an 8 'cause it was our first look at them. M:0 was servicable, a nice look at the very early 3I. Anomalies could be mined for some stuff as could the Aliens Archive. The rest were, IMEHO, not worth the inks and paper used to print them. If I could have used negative numbers I would have.

Every UWP in 1st Survey was wrong. Not a few here and there, not a subsector or three, but every single one. The formulae in FF&S2 were printed incorrectly, it's a nie book IF you have the errata. CSC, EA, Starhips, and NAM were simply godawful embarrasments. The adventures were excreable too. Check out BIT's version of 'Long Way Home' and IG's version; nearly two completely different products.

I'll most likely pick up a T4 ebook or cd-rom because I'm a completist. Other than that, forget about it.


Sincerely,
Larsen

1 - I know of three individuals who were never paid for their work.

2 - Playtest info and errata were eagerly created by Our Olde Hobby and then completely ignored.

 

[Commander Drax]

Sigh, Well guys here's a copy of the email I sent Mr Miller.


Hi Avery, here are the results of my survey, as requested, products that I do not own and therefore have no opinion on I have marked as zero (inlcuding 'Marc Miller's Traveller (hardcover)' as when I purchased the game rules, only soft-cover was available. If you include softcover in the survey I would give it a 5.

I am a long time traveller fan and originally started with MegaTraveller (which I thought was great), TNE was technically excellent though lacking in atmosphere, T4 all in all a very good game system which would score 10's across the board for everything except that it lacks consistency from product to product. I personally did'nt like the ship design systems in the basic rules or the Starships book, finding them to be too restrictive due to their modular nature. Also my copy of fire fusion and steel did'nt contain any guidelines to allow the new sensor rules to work properly or even integrate with the stats and systems given in the basic rules, that I quite liked.

T4 as a game system was extremely well thought out, I liked the way that you built on the developments of the past 20+ years of traveller developments and liked the combinations of technology such as Heplar/Contragrav and thruster plates. It's just that consistency was a big problem though I honestly admit that its better work than I could ever do. I still like Milieu Zero and use it to this very day with T20 rules, and all of the supporting products I own or was able to buy before the products became unavailable.


T5 however looks great, and wish you the very greatest of successes with this one. I know it's hard to keep a fan base happy, but despite the problems associated with T4 and the disastrous Starships book, I for one will be first in the queue to get my copy of T5.

I' know you did'nt ask for comments but I felt that I just had to say something.

Hope this helps.

__________________________________________________

Enough Said I think, but starships still has to be the worst product of the lot, for many millions of different reasons. My impression of Imperial Games, was that they were after a quick buck and damn the quality.


0___ Marc Miller's Traveller (Hardcover)
1___ Starships
0___ Central Supply Catalog
0___ Aliens Archive
8___ Milieu 0
4___ First Survey
0___ Emperor's Arsenal
0___ Pocket Empires
0___ Anomalies
8___ Psionic Institutes
1___ Fire, Fusion & Steel
1___ Emperor's Vehicles
0___ Naval Architect's Manual
0___ Imperial Squadrons
0___ Missions of State
0___ Long Way Home
7___ Gateway!
0___ Annililik Run
0___ Game Screen

 

[jaymin]

Originally posted by Morte:
Judging by the general layout, and the date, of my copy of Pocket Empires it looks like it might have started as an electronic document (DTP).

Pocket Empires was developed by a number of us (CORE) over e-mail. So that kind of counts for electronic format. One of us then "edited" it so that we could charge more money. (We didn't know at the time what a problem getting them to pay us at all would be.) I've still got several of the drafts in my mail box.

I posted in another thread that I'm collecting stuff for the www.pocketempires.com website. I'm going through my old drafts to work out what didn't make it into the final version and post that as supplementary material. You are welcome to submit "fixes" and stuff like that.

I beleive that the copyright has reverted back to Marc. So I won't be posting parts of the text wholesale. Although that would be an interesting concept. If someone has an idea for how to do it that won't infringe on his right to make money with reprints, I'm open to suggestions.

 

[plop101]

7____ Marc Miller's Traveller (Hardcover)
0____ Starships
9____ Central Supply Catalog
8____ Aliens Archive
7____ Milieu 0
0____ First Survey
0____ Emperor's Arsenal
8____ Pocket Empires
0____ Anomalies
0____ Psionic Institutes
0____ Fire, Fusion & Steel
0____ Emperor's Vehicles
0____ Naval Architect's Manual
0____ Imperial Squadrons
0____ Missions of State
0____ Long Way Home
0____ Gateway!
0____ Annililik Run
7____ Game Screen

 

[TheDS]

Had I acquired FFS2 before FFS1, I might have liked it a lot better. Part of my infatuation with FFS1 was that it was unique and did what I wanted. While FFS2 filled in a few of the minor details (additional hull forms, for instance), it was just plain obnoxious to read, and might have proven to be equal in my mind had I gotten them in opposite order. (Actually, had I gotten something called FFS2 BEFORE getting FFS1, I never would have bothered with FFS1 and where would I be then? I usually assume higher version numbers mean lower ones are no longer applicible.)

But if they'd been published in reverse order, named the other way, I might like FFS2.

I'd have to go through all my stuff again (taking weeks to do so) to give a fair rating, since I didn't do much more than read T4 stuff once (I have most of it, tho) and go back to doing whatever I was with TNE or my own projects.

Anyway, that all being said:
For God's sake, Marc, FIX THE DANG THINGS! (incorporate errata)

 

[Drakon]

I would like to know just what all is in the "Naval Architect's Manual" I know what it sounds like, and have been looking for this book. Unfortunately, the only T4 stuff I have seen in the game shops is Annililik Run.

I have the T3 (excuse me, TNE) FF&S but not the T4 version. Starships I think is the only T4 book I have.

 

[mike wightman]

It's basically a book full of deck plans for the different components you can build into a ship, there are plans for small bridges, large bridges, small staterooms, large staterooms etc. ...

You are allowed to photocopy it to build up full ships that you have designed.

 

[erisred]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
It's basically a book full of deck plans for the different components you can build into a ship, there are plans for small bridges, large bridges, small staterooms, large staterooms etc. ...

You are allowed to photocopy it to build up full ships that you have designed.

But from my memory...not all of the components are of the same scale, so you *can't* interchangablly piece them together. And just what *is* the scale in NA, 5' squares, 1.5 m squares, 1 m squares, 3' squares? It never says...or if it does, I totally missed it. You should have heard me holler when I went through that book!